


Flesh that wants touch

by villaindry



Series: Gospel of Water [1]
Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Christianity, Gen, Mild Blood, References to Norse Religion & Lore, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Self-Acceptance, Trans Athelstan, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-07
Updated: 2020-05-07
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:27:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24048154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/villaindry/pseuds/villaindry
Summary: Athelstan attempts to shave his tonsure and is caught. Athelstan and Ragnar have a long conversation about 'beauty' and 'pleasure'; amazingly no one blushes. Note: Athelstan is trans.
Relationships: Athelstan/Ragnar Lothbrok
Series: Gospel of Water [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1902151
Comments: 14
Kudos: 62





	Flesh that wants touch

**Author's Note:**

> Anyone else desperately miss touching other people? Yikes.

Athelstan kneels over a brimming dish of water, gripping the rim with both hands. His reflection swims on the surface, but he stares at it so long and so fiercely he could be looking beyond it, for another face perhaps, one that swims at a deeper depth. 

It may be too late. He may already be discovered.

On board the boat that had spirited him across the North Sea less than a month ago, at least he had the protection of his monk’s habit. He could draw the hood tight around him, even as the Northmen leered close, and his skin remained obstinately, treacherously soft even after many days sail. 

Here, on his captor’s farm, he is exposed again. His habit is gone. Taken from him, scornfully, by the Northman and his wife. They unravelled the wool into skeins which are now scattered around the farmstead; he encounters them sometimes by surprise in a new place, a new use; woven into a shawl for the little girl, roughly mending a fence post, or strung with shells and pieces of wave-worn timber to sway and rattle in the wind, curious evocations - to what, he didn’t know. 

They put everything to use here. Himself included. And his precious robe, that had once enveloped him, warmed him, marked him out as special - while also protecting him, concealing him, hiding his hips and narrow shoulders in its folds - it was stripped to nothing. 

And yet, it was still all around him. Given new purpose. That was holy, in its own way.

_All things made new._

At Lindisfarne, Athelstan had remade himself. After he left home, he had travelled for many months before arriving at its gates, hungry, dirty, caring nothing for the direction he took or how he was treated. 

But in the monastery, when they asked him his name, for the very first time he said that it was Athelstan. The monks fed him and shared their clothing. When he asked to stay, they gave him work, and cut his hair. They told him he must cast away the vanities of the flesh. Athelstan, whose flesh had always seemed false, praised the Lord in relief as his dark curls were sheared away. At night, he dreamed of stepping from his body, dissolving into the arms of the waiting Christ.

He leans over the water, one hand curled around a thick, massive knife. 

He brings it to his scalp. 

A stand of bristling black hair now mars what had once been the clean circle of his tonsure. He puts the knife to them, shearing desperately at the thick stubble. The job is a bad one. The blade is sharper than he thought, and burns him. He grits his teeth into the pain, trying to remember the tender hands of his brothers from before, their soft words of prayer. But blood wells around his fingers and his grip slips on the handle, sending another sear of pain across his skull. 

A shout of laughter behind him. He whips around to see the Northman’s son, mouth frozen open in gleeful horror. Behind him, the wife and her daughter stare in dismay, before Lagertha puts her arms around the children and hurries them away. She looks back over her shoulder, taking it in - the knife, his oozing scalp, gore-darkened water in the bowl - and something closes over her face before she is gone. 

He turns back to the bowl, his helplessness doubling him over until the bloody water almost laps over his mouth and nose.

The boy’s laughter rises high and breathy from outside, before it is cut off with a yelp. He hears Lagertha calling her husband’s name - _Ragnar!_ \- and the hissing, whispering voices that follow. _Mutilation… the children… dangerous…_

As sick as he feels, he cannot stop now. If they believe he clings to his rituals, fervently shaving his head and face, they may not notice how smooth his face stubbornly remains without grooming. The monks were tidy, meticulous; they also never looked too closely. Absorbed in their books and prayers. The Northmen, he thinks, pay attention. The strange grooming will mark him out, but not in the worst way he can imagine. 

It is the best disguise he can muster. Misdirection. A canny sidestep from the truth. 

_Priest._

He whirls around again, rising to a wary crouch. Ragnar leans in the doorway, blotting out the light. 

_Lagertha wishes for you to bathe. She cannot stand the sight of you. Or the smell._

He looks Athelstan up and down. 

_I have to say, she has a point._

His first night in their home, Ragnar and Lagertha invited him into their bed. The thought of it alone was enough to shatter Athelstan’s thoughts with terror. It wasn’t that the desire didn’t register. More that his survival instinct is so acute, so keenly honed after half a lifetime of hiding, as to render any other feeling blunted and dull alongside it. He had almost screamed when Ragnar knelt at his feet, willed himself to remain still as the Northman reached for him, no matter how gently it was done. 

Like that night, Athelstan tenses, ready to bolt. He feels like a wild animal. Ragnar has not moved. 

_I am trying._

_Badly. You cannot use that knife._

_I… need to cut my hair. To shave._

_I am not so sure you do, priest._

Ragnar pushes himself from the doorway and steps into the gloom across the threshold. He crosses the hall slowly, skirting the circle of light from the fire. Athelstan is minded of wolves circling, and shifts his weight to follow him. Misdirection. 

_You call me priest,_ he says quickly. _But you would deny me those things that make me so._

_I do?_

_My habit. And you do not want me to cut my hair._

_Not so. I merely said you cannot use that knife. It is far too large. Unwieldy. Take this one._

A knife sparkles in front of Athelstan’s eyes. It is short and slender, with a fine, curved blade. Ragnar moved more quickly than Athelstan could have imagined.

 _But it strikes me the call of your god must be a weak one, if your hair growing over your ears is enough for you to lose the sound._

Behind the blade, the Northman’s eyes are full of mirth. 

_Come. I will show you where to bathe._

*

Ragnar leads him outside and across the empty beach, a little way from the farmstead.

A stream flows from the hillside, criss-crossing over the silt and into the sea.

Athelstan looks around warily. He has seen Ragnar here before, naked and wading in the deep parts of the stream. The Northmen are not shy with their bodies, he has learned, but Ragnar especially is utterly unselfconscious. In the morning he sits in the water braiding his own hair, the muscles in his back shifting and flexing beneath the skin. The man is so strong it makes Athelstan feel dizzyingly weak in comparison.

_Here?_

Athelstan tries to keep the edge of panic from his voice. Ragnar glances at him askance. 

_No, not here._

He leads him up the hillside, into the trees. They climb over rocky outcrops, lush with moss and ferns, following the stream as it tumbles merrily between the trees. The cold air stings the cut to the back of Athelstan’s head.

_Tell me, why you must cut your hair in this fashion? It is very ugly._

_It is not meant to be beautiful. It is meant to show that we monks renounce beauty, and what it may bring._

_And what does beauty bring, priest?_

_Pleasure,_ says Athelstan calmly. He is always calm when talking about his faith. _Of the body._

 _Ah yes, of course. This is why you refused me and my poor wife. She was very offended._

Athelstan looks quickly at Ragnar, but the Northman only turns his mouth down in a mock grimace before breaking into a chuckle. 

_You are wrong anyway. Torstein, for example, has no beauty, and still he enjoys many bodily pleasures. As you put it._

Ragnar laughs again and even Athelstan grins at that, until Ragnar reaches out, thumps an arm briefly against Athelstan’s chest. The friendly gesture sends Athelstan rigid with shock, and he can only stumble in Ragnar’s wake as he moves on, still chuckling softly.

 _So the ugly hair means do not fuck me,_ Ragnar continues. _If only we had known, we would not have embarrassed ourselves._

_It has many meanings,_ Athelstan says, reaching for lightness in his voice. Calm. _It can also signify the crown of thorns that Christ wore when He was crucified. We wear it to show that we, like Christ, are crucified with Him. Others say that in ancient times it was customary to shave the heads of male slaves. Because we have bent our will to the will of God, some monks refer to themselves as slaves of Christ._

_You believe you are a slave to your god? You would choose to call yourself a slave?_

_Some do._

_Not you?_

_I suppose I prefer not to think of myself that way,_ Athelstan says, none too sarcastically.

Ragnar cocks an eyebrow at him. _So, what do you prefer?_

Athelstan is amused by the persistence of Ragnar’s questioning, usually so impersonal. Discussing his faith, he feels more assured than he has since arriving in this strange place. It is like finding solid ground beneath his feet after many days at sea. And under Ragnar’s intense gaze, he finds himself eager to speak, eager to be understood.

 _Beauty in a body means very little to me,_ he says in earnest. _I like the thought that we can discard beauty, and with it cast off the desires and corruptions of the flesh. As monks, we remove ourselves from the hierarchies of the world, of marriage, to reach for something other. Outside of… pleasure. Or power. We are one with Christ, as He invites us to be. And through Him, all are one. There is neither slave nor free, neither male nor female. All are one._

He becomes aware that they have stopped. The sounds of the forest slowly return to him. It’s like a mist has veiled his eyes and ears while he speaks. He turns to Ragnar again, who is watching his face with curiosity.

_Beauty is not so easily discarded, priest._

Athelstan dares himself not to look away as Ragnar scrutinises him. Eventually the Northman smiles, and moves on. They walk a little further in silence. 

How much does the Northman see? He has no idea. Athelstan thinks of Lindisfarne again, his last sight of it, a smudge of smoke on the horizon long after the land had vanished. And his first sight of the man who walks beside him now, the man who chose, for reasons he still cannot understand, to spare his life. When Ragnar had thrown him to the ground, the look that passed over his face was so penetrating that Athelstan felt stripped naked. 

Rough grip on his arm through the woollen sleeve. Dread certainty that he was seen, known. 

But Ragnar only wanted to question him. He took the book and shook it open, not in anger, but something closer to hunger. He looked ready to tear the pages apart and swallow them if it meant he might understand their meaning, the value that Athelstan could see but he could not. Sometimes, when he questions Athelstan about England, saturating him with ale, he leans in so close as if to eat him, too. To possess. To consume. To _know._

They had been walking slowly, but now Ragnar darts ahead to clamber lightly over the huge rocks that choke the stream. The water foams around him, seething over the low falls. Athelstan follows more slowly, grateful for the clean, cold air of the hillside, the strain in his arms as he hauls himself upwards through it.

He mounts the piled rocks, and sees they form the lip of a large pool, deep green under the canopy. Another, higher waterfall courses into the pool on the other side, arching over a sheer rock face. Despite the rushing sound of water below them and ahead, the clearing below the cliff where the pool lies seems hushed and still. A fine mist hangs in the air, sparkling with sunlight. 

_You can bathe here._

Ragnar gestures offhandedly to the pool, half turning away from it. Athelstan cannot understand his affectations sometimes. As if Ragnar has not just lead him to a place more beautiful than he can imagine. 

_Thank you,_ he says. _It is kind of you to show me this place._

 _It is not kindness. You frightened my children, priest._

The Northman is absolutely still.

 _I’m sorry._

Athelstan forces himself to return Ragnar’s gaze.

_I must ask something of you. Please, will you leave me here, and let me bathe alone?_

_Shy?_

_I’m sorry,_ he says again. _I can’t explain myself. But please, let me do this._

Ragnar quirks his mouth down again, shrugs.

 _Take this, then._

He holds out the curved knife.The blade looks wicked in the shattered sunlight, like a challenge. 

Athelstan takes it and turns it over in his hands. The handle is buttery yellow bone, fluid with carvings, and so warm in his hand it could be alive. It looks like something that has been specially made for someone, a gift, or an offering. Who could have given it to Ragnar? It is so lovely; surely someone to whom he was very precious. Or, he thinks dully, the more likely question is, from whom did Ragnar take it? It had meaning to someone, once.

What does it mean now? What is Ragnar offering him? Athelstan does not dare to look up, not certain what Ragnar’s face will tell him. He is dimly aware that this, too, is not offered as a kindness.

_Don’t be long, priest._

Ragnar’s blue eyes are blank and inscrutable. But then - 

_And don’t turn into an eel and wriggle away from me. I’ve tried grasping eels before, they are hard to hold on to._

He leans in close, gives Athelstan a filthy wink, and is gone before the monk’s mouth can fall open in reply.

*

He strips, and swims. 

The water shocks him at first, tooth-achingly cold, but he forces himself in and under. Kicks and splutters in circles a few times. Then, something wondrous happens, and it becomes almost warm.

He begins to take long and luxurious strokes across the pool. At the edges, where it is shallower, his feet kick up clouds of silt which turn the water ochre-gold. He takes in the water as pure colour with his painters eye, remembering verdigris, vergaut, orpiment… words liquid and mysterious in his mouth. 

In the deep centre the water is so green it feels thick, like heavy silk sliding across his skin.

Loosed from its bindings, his body is soft and slight. He floats half submerged, feeling his chest expanding with air, his ribs spiralling open, his face bending to the sun like the crown of a tree. His mind drifts back to Ragnar, his strong arms and legs as he strides over the beach in the mornings. The golden crown of his head, a lip of black water closing over it. 

Ragnar moves through the world with impatience, too quick at times and disconcertingly still at others, as if seeking to command the way time flows around him. In his presence it is possible to feel swept under waves generated by the force of his purpose. What his purposes are may be hidden to all but Ragnar himself, but below the surface they run violent as tidal currents. Athelstan has seen him turn that force on others; he has seen the man fight, listened to him silence a room full of Northmen with his voice. He has watched him labour, hard, on the farm. And, God forgive him, he has even seen him fuck.

What is it like, Athelstan wonders, to live in such a body? What is it like, to move one moment into the next, and the one after, and wring such bloody pleasure from each? So much of Athelstan’s life has been about the need for concealment, creating a necessary space around himself. He has known all his life he is bound to be an observer, watching the world from its edges. 

But he knows hunger too. 

He said he did not care for beauty; this was a lie. He is a constant, needy witness to it. The delight he took in his work in Lindisfarne’s scriptorium was not purely at the word of God. Radiant images flowed daily into his eyes and mind as from a pure spring; his appetite for beauty, for delight, touched without hands all that it wanted. Small acts; gathering oak galls, asp of jerusalem and turnsole, seashells from the island, salt and chalk. Grinding for hours, until his shoulders screamed and his arms turned lean and hard, to produce a thimble-full of pigment. It was worth it for the power granted him next: holding a brush over parchment, loaded with colour. The simple wonder of having a hand that could hold the brush, wield it in such a way that gave form and meaning to an empty page.

Green for creation. Gold for a king. 

Livid red behind his eyelids, in the farmstead, as he tried not to see.

The brush, the page: a reconciliation of the mind to the hand. Matter to spirit. The soul and the flesh; what is he, if not both?

Flesh, that wants touch.

_All things made new._

It is much later when he returns to the farm, but Ragnar greets him with a crow of laughter, racing across the sand to catch at him roughly, running a palm over the newly bare landscape of Athelstan’s skull. Instead of shaving his tonsure, Athelstan has trimmed the shaggy circle of hair around it down to match. His head is fuzzy, but mostly even, and it feels very light. 

At the calloused palm that briefly cups the crown of his head, a thrill of fear hits Athelstan, jagged in the belly. He feels wild again. This time, to reach out, to partake.

He forgets the knife where he left it, buried point down in the earth beside the pool.

*

Later, as night falls over the beach, Athelstan asks: _Do your people believe in the soul?_

There is no reply to the Saxon word. He casts about for another. 

_I mean, an inner self?_

Silence. Then -

_Yes. Many of them._

Athelstan waits. 

_Hamr… the skin self, animated by the breath. Hugr and Munr… The self that thinks, and one that dreams. And other selves, that wander._

_Where do they go?_ asks Athelstan. He does not notice that he is whispering.

 _Where they will,_ says Ragnar. _Ahead._

The words leave the Northman’s lips like a sigh. 

_Perhaps I visited you in England, before I ever came ashore. Did you see me, watching you? A wolf by the gate?_

He regards Athelstan coolly, eyes grey and inscrutable in the gathering dark, and Athelstan shivers.

**Author's Note:**

> Extremely tangentially inspired by the David Foster Wallace essay, 'Both Flesh and Not,' which is about tennis. But it contains the excellent phrase 'a reconciliation with the fact of having a body'.
> 
> Resources used:
> 
> \- On the meaning of the tonsure: http://www.juniorsbook.com/tell-me-why-numerous-questions-and-answers/why-are-monks-tonsured/  
> \- On the Viking concept of the self: http://doctorhawk.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-anatomy-of-soul-in-nordic-traditions.html  
> \- On the Lindisfarne Gospels, an Anglo-Saxon illuminated manuscript created about 70-110 years pre the events of Vikings: https://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/features/lindisfarne/chemistry.html  
> \- On gender in Galations 3.28: 'Beyond Difference' by Judith M. Gundry-Volf in Gospel and Gender, 2003.
> 
> Athelstan quotes Gal 3.28, and 2 Corinthians 5:17.
> 
> Let me know what you think!


End file.
